| Discipline or Punishment By Bob Wagner I often have parents come to me and ask; “What do I do with my child? I whip them, I send them to their room, I take away their toys, I yell and scream and it doesn’t work; if I hit them any harder they will arrest me for child abuse. What can I do?” My reply is always the same, “Stop punishing them when they do things wrong and start disciplining them.” The parents at this point usually get that “Deer in the headlight” look and say, “What do you mean?” I then begin to explain that most parents believe that punishment and discipline have the same meaning but that is far from the truth. Let’s take a look: Discipline: Old French, from Latin disciplina teaching, learning, from disciples pupil. Training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character. Punish: Middle French puniss-, stem of punir, from Latin punire, from poena penalty to impose a penalty on for a fault, offense, or violation a : to inflict a penalty for the commission of (an offense) in retribution or retaliation to deal with roughly or harshly b : to inflict injury on. There is a big difference between training and imposing a penalty or inflicting injury on a person. A child should be punished ONLY AFTER all forms of teaching are exhausted and when used in conjunction with teaching. Punishing your child is the easy way out, or is it? If punishment is the primary disciplinary action to bring correction to a situation, you are teaching your children that they are not to do things because of fear of receiving pain or losing something they enjoy rather then because it is wrong. Paddle them and in 15 minutes the pain is gone, take away the toy and in 15 minutes they forget about it. Teach them and it will always be in their mind forever. The bible tells parents not to provoke their children to anger. When you spank your child or take away something they like you will cause the child to get angry. Angry children do not want to get close to the ones who hurt them and actually distance themselves from the parent causing the pain. Once a child gets angry two things can happen; They can direct that anger toward the parents and that will usually cause them to be punished more, thus resulting in more anger and/or they begin to direct their anger someplace else; they may throw things, or kick, punch and hit. I knew a child that would slap himself when he did things wrong, (I guess he knew it would eventually come from his parents and he wanted to beat them to it). Some children become bullies and take their anger out on the playground or at school. They hit and yell at the other children who do things they think are wrong. Hmm, I wonder where they picked that habit up. It may be easy to punish your children, but trust me; you will spend more time later in the principles office, the lawyer’s office, and the therapists or councilor’s office trying to change your child's destructive behavior then you will be by teaching them correctly the first time. Punishment rarely works If you ever had to punish your child more than one or two times for the same thing it is because the child didn't learn. They didn’t learn because they weren't taught properly. To prove that punishment by itself does not work, all we have to do is look at our prison system. According to an article by Crime.org, in 1980, as many as 27,000 parolee violators returned to prisons. By 2000, this number increased to 203,000. This amount represents a 652 percent increase. While many government prison rehabilitation programs report only a 20% success rate, programs that center on teaching have an 80% or better success rate. Parents; Don’t use an unsuccessful program as a guideline to correct your child. If what you are doing is not working, try something else! Discipline takes time and effort. It takes time to sit down with a child and teach them on their level all the reasons they should not behave in negative ways. It takes time to change techniques when we see they are not grasping what we are saying and it takes effort to be creative enough to get through to them. Most parents are not willing to invest the time and effort into their children so they settle for the quick way out by saying things like, "Go to your room!" or they use the back of their hand. If that is you, I suggest you take the time to teach, make the effort to get through. Do what it takes and you will be glad you did. If you don't, you are gambling with your loved one's life and future! So when do I punish? Use punishment AFTER you have exhausted all other means to get through to your child. As far as physical punishment such as spanking, I have only had to physically punish my children a few times in over 21 years of parenting and in those cases it was always when time was of the essence. For example, if a child is reaching for a hot stove, I would rather have them feel the pain from a slap on their hand than to be burned. If I had taken the time to teach them about being burned before that incident it may never have occurred. (I could have possibly taken a piece of chicken meat and showed them what would happen to their hand by holding the meat on the burner.) Teach through punishment When you have to punish, you must always teach the child why they are being punished. They must understand that the punishment is one of the consequences for not following the rules, but they must first know and understand the rules. Have them tell you why they are being punished and what behavior will prevent it from happening again. Have them also tell you why they should not do the wrong thing and the answer should not be because they will get punished. You can choose not to speed because you cannot afford the price of a ticket or you can choose not to speed because you can loose control and get in an accident that can cause injury and death to yourself or others. (I once met a man who said he can speed because he could afford the tickets!!) Example of discipline triumphing over punishment. I had a young girl in my youth group that was caught 'Huffing" Freon from the churches A/C unit. (Huffing is when you release an air conditioners Freon into a baggie and then inhale it. It will cause the oxygen to your brain to freeze and give you a few seconds of lightheadedness.) I was the one who had to inform her parents of what their child did and the dangers of her actions. Of course her parents were outraged and wanted to ground her for months. I asked the father to try something different instead. Rather then using punishment as a deterrent, I suggested he make his daughter go online and do research on the dangers of "Huffing" and then write a report on the matter that she found so enjoyable. A week later, I got a call from the girl asking if she can read her report to the entire youth group. She shared about the dangers of possible immediate death, the destruction of brain cells and bone marrow, becoming mentally unstable and physically handicapped. She did so with such passion, she convinced all of her peers to stay away and help others to do the same. Today she is a student at UNC Wilmington and desires to go into the ministry. Love them through punishment and discipline Always make sure that your love for the child is evident through the entire process. Never treat the child like an outcast or enemy. Never say things like, "Get out of my face" or "I can't stand you". Remember words hurt and they also influence a child's self esteem. You can be loving, kind and firm at the same time. You don't have to yell and scream or act like some Ogre or mean old witch to teach your children how to do right. Words like, "Get your butt in here" or "Sit down and shut up" are not words filled with kindness and love. Who wants to learn from someone like that anyway? I stay away from people who talk like that and to be honest, if you are going to talk to me like that, even if I did something wrong, I will not pay any attention to a thing your saying. Remember Charlie Brown when the parents talked? All you heard was, "Wa, wa, wa". That is what your children hear when you speak negatively. Besides when you speak like that you teach your children to do the same. Remember "NO!" means the same as "no" and "Please come here, sit down and be quiet for a few minutes" means that same as "Sit down and Shut up!" You are not the child's enemy, don't act like one. It is fine to discipline your children and hug and loved on them while they were being punished and taught As a matter of fact when you have to discipline them, that is a time when you should intentionally get closer so they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was their actions you didn't like, not them. No matter how old we get, not matter how intelligent we become, we will make mistakes and do things wrong. Can you imagine your boss putting you in the time out corner because you came in late again or seeing a police officer with a person he just pulled for speeding over his knee getting a spanking? That is humiliating at any age. Teach your children, love them and build them up. They are gift from God. Be understanding when they mess up. Remember we adults mess up too, we have just figured out how to shift the blame or hide our mistakes better then they have. If you enjoyed this article and would like to join our free newsletter visit www.bobwagner.org
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